Bulletin Number One 1985

Plate 1 Zheng Xie; Orchids, Bamboo and Rock; Hanging scroll, ink on paper, 127.8x57.7 cm for aiding the victims of natural calamities against the interest of the district authorities. Thereafter, he lived in Yangzhou where he made his living on painting. He attracted a great deal of attention because of his unorthodox manners, especially by posting a price list of his works on the door and openly declared his preference for cash in exchange for his paintings. It could be a violation of the gentility of the so-called amateurism o f the scholar-artists, yet in Yangzhou in the eighteenth century, such actions were probably tolerated as a form of eccentricity. Zheng specialized in painting bamboo, orchids and rock and was considered to have attained the 'ultimate' in the three sister arts of painting, calligraphy and poetry. The painting Orchids, Bamboo and Rock (Plate 1) is an outstanding example. The artist skilfully combined the three motifs in one composition and with the addition of a meaningful inscription his intentions were manifest. Zheng followed the literati tradition to present a humanized and moralized conception of nature. While orchids, bamboo and rocks were often used to symbolize purity, integrity or detachment from the vulgar world, to Zheng and other ‘Eccentric Masters', these motifs assumed even greater significance as a personal expression of indomitable spirit and unyielding vitality. This painting was dedicated t o a friend who, according to Zheng, was 'as vigorous as the bamboo, as pure as the orchid, and as firm as the rock', thereby forming what Zheng considered to be the ‘Four Perfections'. Yet the painted images hardly match with these lofty ideals. Zheng was himself aware o f this, as he observed in the inscription that the bamboo had no stalk, the orchids grew at a slanting angle and the rock was placed obliquely. Instead, 12 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS